Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Today, we take a look at changing perspectives on China in the U.S. with CEO and YouTuber Cyrus Jansen. Welcome to The Bridge, enlightening conversations on world cultures, life and everything in between. Hey, everyone, this is Jason Smith, host of The Bridge podcast from sunny California. If you like the show, don't forget to subscribe. We love The Bridge. Oh, yeah.
Hi everyone, my name is Jason Smith. I'm originally from sunny California and now I'm living in beautiful Beijing.
Today's guest is Cyrus Jansen, a geopolitical analyst, investor, speaker, and social media influencer with over 1 million fans across the social media platforms. Based in Las Vegas, Nevada, Cyrus is CEO of Fast Forward Marketing, a social media and consulting company helping brands in North America and Asia connect and build successful social media campaigns. Welcome back to The Bridge to China, Cyrus. Jason, thank you so much. Always a pleasure to be here.
yeah i'm excited to for this conversation i especially want to ask you because you're located largely in the united states
what have you noticed about the xiao hongshu or red note phenomenon and have people in your daily life said that they use it what have they said about it yeah i mean jason it's been one of the best stories of 2025 because what has happened is we've seen an incredible cultural exchange between millions of chinese and millions of americans and it's the first time in history that we've just seen an instant connection you know within a period of a week
You just had these natural friendships being born. And also just, I think the nicest thing is a lot of people started asking questions and really started wanting to learn more. That's exactly what we have between the United States and China that is the best is people-to-people diplomacy.
and you know our politicians might not get along obviously both politicians have very different views on how they want to run their country i wouldn't say one is right or one is wrong but you know teach their own everyone's got to find a system that works for them but when you get down to people to people diplomacy you and i both know we spent a lot of time in china
you interact with chinese people you know they're great and i think for many americans it was their first time to see that so yeah so i have a lot of friends that were just like hey have you heard about this red note and i'm like absolutely man get involved it's it's this is fun this is exciting and it's a great opportunity for you to learn the truth about china i was really confused when people were saying red note i was like what's red note because they call it little red book in english in china so then it's called red note in america and it's hong shu in chinese
And I even mentioned it on an interview for the news in China. The gentleman who's like taken aback by it, he was like, why are all these Americans using Xiaohongshu? This is for like hobbyists. This is a hobbyist app. You know, this is where they go to learn how to cook things. You know, everyone in America seemed to think that they were moving over to the Chinese TikTok, which is Douyin. But there weren't. They were moving into this other app.
And so it was really bizarre how the whole thing unfolded. But also, I agree with you. Phenomenal. Like online, a lot of like trolls that usually like attack China just...
stopped because I think a lot of people realize that Chinese people are just like American people. It was a huge breakthrough that just normal people, millions of normal people in both countries get to talk to each other, ask each other questions. I actually saw some of the questions really bizarre, like, do you get paid money? Are you able to spend money? It's just like, wow, like the kinds of things that Americans didn't understand was just
It's just really refreshing that we were able to just open that up. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more, Jason. So for a long time, we've been struggling to help regular Americans see past the U.S. media headlines into the real China. Like, have you actually met real people in Las Vegas who have had a personal experience talking to Chinese people?
You know, what's really interesting, Jason, is I think I would say even for myself, you know, having lived in China for many years and really being someone that has traveled around the world, seen a lot of the world, you know, most Americans don't have a passport. Most Americans don't travel outside this border. The vast majority of people that I know in Las Vegas, they've never been outside the United States, you know, maybe.
to a beach in Cancun, Mexico for a holiday, you know, for a three, four day holiday. But, you know, the whole concept of anything China or really in Asia, you know, even specific is just so foreign to them. So, yeah, I mean, I've seen a lot more people
starting to question the U S government, starting to question the narratives. And I think for myself and having lived in China for so long and now being relocating back here, a lot of people are very open to that. And when, when they get a chance to actually speak with me one-on-one, it's like, Oh, wow, you lived overseas while you lived in China. Like, what was that like? I'd love to, you know, I know you, so I would actually be very keen to see what your opinion about it is. And you,
look at you as a trusted source and to really understand more about that. And yeah, so I feel like I'm a little bit of an ambassador wherever I go. You know, when I'm in China, I am an ambassador for the United States. I want people to, you know, make sure that they have a very good interaction with myself and that I represent my country well. And then when I'm in the United States, I want to make sure that people know if they're curious about it, they want to learn about China. I'm happy to tell them about my journeys and all the experiences that I've had over the nearly 20 years that I've been going to China.
I recently saw that you had interviewed Kishore Mahbubani, and I saw your clip on X. And I saw a speech that he gave at Harvard University in 2014. And he noted that part of the problem with U.S. media is that it has this incestuous relationship with itself. So you hear it on New York Times, then Wall Street Journal says it, and then everyone's just kind of bouncing the same ideas. I think that having some fresh influx of ideas is
from China through Xiao Hongshu might be good for US media because it'll force them to really try to be more accurate about what they're saying because regular people can just go and check now. Oh, really? You say that? Let me go check with my new friend in China on my phone and see how that how it looks. I want to pivot a little bit to the new administration because I'm again, I'm an American, but I'm not living in the United States.
It's the U.S. is under new leadership and Trump has raised tariffs to 10% across the board on China. What does that mean for regular consumers in America? And is this good? Is this going to bring manufacturing back to the U.S.? Yeah, Jason, I think what is incredible is you have a tremendous amount of Americans that don't understand what a tariff means. They simply don't understand the definition and they don't understand how it works.
I would give you an example. I was eavesdropping on this other conversation with some Americans, and they said, you know, Trump is amazing. He's going to make America great again. Look at all these changes he's doing in the White House. And, you know, we're going to we're going to really stick it to China. China is going to have to pay all these tariffs. We're going to make so much money off of China. And I just kind of chimed in. I said, OK.
wow, that's interesting you would say that. I said, do you know how the tariffs actually work? And he said, well, yeah. When China wants to sell us their products, we're going to put a 25, 30, maybe 40% tariff on that. They've got to pay us that fee. We're going to take that revenue and we're going to then turn it and use that in other industries. I said, no, that's not actually how it works. But how it works is it's the importer. So if your Nike shoes cost $100 and now you've got a 20% tariff on that, well, the importer, which would be Nike,
they're going to have to pay that $20 of tax. So that means your shoes are now $120.
and instead of 100. And he kind of looked at me like, how does it work like that? I'm like, that's what a tariff is. It's a tax and it's a tax based on the importer, whoever is importing that in. So unfortunately, there was a lot of misinformation about that. And I just think a lot of people didn't actually understand that. To answer your first question, will it be better for the United States economy? No, it's going to be a disaster. I think it's going to absolutely cause a lot of financial harm. I think you're going to see inflation absolutely go through the roof.
And I think what you saw, Jason, which was really interesting, is about three weeks ago, Trump said, we're going to go through and we are going to pass 25% tariffs on Canada, the United States' closest ally, the country that we share a 4,000-mile border with.
that obviously we've had tremendous diplomatic relationships for our entire history, it makes absolutely no sense to tariff Canada. And that would instantly increase, for example, most of the cars that are manufactured in America, well, they go cross-border between Canada six, seven times with different parts and different systems. I mean, your average car from Detroit, they're getting parts shipped over from Canada and other parts of the world. I mean, that
cost is going to go up thousands of dollars, you know, to accommodate for these new tariffs. So, and let's just give you back to the Nike example. Let's say that Nike says, okay, you know what? We're going to relocate all of our factories to America. That way we just proudly made in America. Well, how long is that going to take?
Logistically, you'd be lucky to get that done in a decade, you know, to try to phase out your factories overseas, relocate them all to the United States, hire American workers. Well, guess what? Your Nike shoes are going to cost $300 because it's going to be so expensive to manufacture that in the United States. So I'm very much one that preaches about the global economy and the fact that we benefit
because of international trade you know i want to buy from everyone around the world if ethiopia makes the best shoes i'm going to buy from ethiopia you know why do i need to compete with that buy them you know if you know and that's that's where you know we're really going backwards in time i feel when we're doing tariffs and we're trying to say
Let's just rely on ourselves. Well, no, that's what you did in the 1600s when it was very difficult to trade. You only had what you had, you know. And then if you wanted something, you had to get it shipped on a boat and it would take months to get over the ocean. That's when trade was difficult. And today, 2025, it makes no sense to do this. I'm all about promoting a global economy. And that's why I think China is such an incredible force for the world, because quite frankly, we would not be able to live the American lifestyle and our American way of life
without a country like China producing and manufacturing the way that it does. I have an unusual question. I just want to see how you would field it. Could the tariffs help Chinese companies in any way? Could they help? Well, I think what you're seeing is, I do think that they've helped because, you know, the tariffs hasn't started in 2025. I mean, they've obviously started in 2018 when Donald Trump first launched the trade war against China. And I think what you're seeing, Jason, is you're seeing a lot of Chinese companies, you know, turn to be more innovative.
You have many examples would be the tariffs is one thing, but you also have sanctions where the U.S. government actively sanctions companies saying you can't sell to this person or we're not going to sell you our advanced microchips. You know, we're going to try to block off your technology, you know, your access to this technology. That way you don't develop.
And as a result, China has to turn domestically and it has to turn inwardly. And it's going to invent those technologies and it's going to get access to that because they can't buy it. Then they're going to make it themselves and they're going to figure out a way to do that. And we've seen a lot of case studies over the years. The biggest one that comes to mind would be Huawei that has been able to have an incredible resurgence. You know, they did get hit very hard by tariffs and by, you know, sanctions.
And they were able to pivot. They had a couple of years where they lost a lot of revenue. Even the CEO had come out and said, look, we're really facing a tough time right now. This is the hardest time our company's ever had to face. We're going to have to really step our game up and really going to have to work hard. And it's come through very, very brightly on the other end because of that. So,
I think one thing that you can just not take away from the Chinese is the simple fact that you never want to force them into a corner and try to cut them off because the Chinese are very innovative, they're very hardworking, and they're very resilient.
You know, I think Huawei is a very interesting example because I've been learning about it. It's actually not owned by shareholders. It's owned by the workers. So 99% of the shares in Huawei are owned by the workers. So it's not like the investors were just going to pull out. So even though they lost revenue, the workers were just like –
This is our livelihood. What do we need to do to survive? And so it gave them more motivation to come up with solutions to save the company. I find that very fascinating. Absolutely. You recently attended the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and I saw a couple of clips of your videos there. Could you tell me about China's presence in Las Vegas in consumer electronics? Sure.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, the Consumer Electronics Show is an annual event held every January in Las Vegas. It is the largest consumer tech show in the world. It's an amazing week for Las Vegas. We have over 150,000 people from around the globe come here. Really, anybody in technology is in town.
It's a lot of fun to be on the Vegas Strip. Everybody's got the name badge on. Everybody's there for CES. Every hotel is sold out. And what's really fascinating, I think this is the one statistic I want every one of the viewers to remember, is that in 2024, there was around 3,600 people
Chinese companies in attendance. In 2025, there was over 4,000. So even despite the amount of tensions that we've seen between the U.S. and China, the trade wars, tariffs, sanctions, whatever you want to throw at it, and of course, the deterioration of the U.S.-China relationship, there's even more Chinese companies coming.
And so I think that's a big takeaway that I want people to remember is the fact that many more Chinese companies still want to come. They still want to do business. They're still very eager to be here. I mean, I had a great time walking the floor meeting amazing entrepreneurs. I mean, there was a really one that stood out to me was this...
actually technology hub based in Shenzhen called the X-Bot Park. And they brought over dozens of venture capitalists and Chinese entrepreneurs. They were making some pretty cool technology that they were debuting. And it was this technology hub from Shenzhen that had brought all of these entrepreneurs over there. So there's a lot of excitement there.
And I think the biggest thing that I've seen, Jason, is you see a lot of Chinese have a lot of pride. You know, they're very proud to be Chinese. They're very proud to have a Chinese company. They're very proud to make these products and, you know, want to showcase them and bring them around the world. And I think it's an incredible thing. And so that's where I want people to really understand that.
Again, how our global economy works, because not only is there 4000, you know, companies from China directly from China there. But if you start going to all the other companies, they have many supply chains and many connections back to China. I mean, you can't really have a consumer electronics show without China.
It's impossible. If you were to cut off any company that has exposure to China, it would be very few people in attendance. You know, it just wouldn't be a bunch of a show at all. And I think that speaks volume to how, again, the global economy and how important China is. You mentioned VC companies from China being present in Las Vegas. So I'm assuming a lot of the attendees are like yourself or Americans. Are American companies eager to have JVs and to deepen their work with Chinese firms?
You know what I've learned is that in America, you have two types of people. You have the first type is someone that is an entrepreneur, that is very business savvy, and they're thinking, you know what, I want to do business. I want to do business, and if China has the technology, let's go for it.
Again, we don't need to see eye to eye politically. You could love your government. I could love my government. At the end of the day, you have a great product. I want to buy it or I want to do a joint venture with you. Let's work together. We don't have to see eye to eye politically for that to happen. We need to see eye to eye business wise and we need to have a good relationship in that regard. But again, we connect one on one. If you're a Chinese business owner.
and I'm an American business owner, and we're talking over a product or a service or something that could help us both make a win-win, you know, again, that's going to happen. And people are very, very interested into that. So I think you see a lot of Americans that aren't in business. You know, let's just say that they're an employee and they don't really know anything about China. You know, they just go work their job and then come home. They're not going to be as open to thinking outside the box and working with China. I think that's kind of the difference that I've seen. So...
savvy businessmen that have a little bit more understanding of the world. Absolutely. They're very keen on working with China. As we both know, China likes to make plans. It's very good at making long-term plans, five-year plans, 10-year plans. I think there's one of the plans goes out into 2050. What is Made in China 2025?
And how does this impact Sino-US business relations? Well, Jason, it goes back to very interesting because Made in China 2025 started 10 years ago. So it started in 2015 when the government launched a program and said, you know, what we want to do is we want to scale into more advanced manufacturing. For decades, Jason, many people looked at China as the factory of just cheap goods.
If you want to get a coffee cup, we can make these in China for $0.25 a piece or whatever it costs. We want to get stuffed animals and toys and plastics. One RMB. Yeah, there you go. One RMB. One RMB. So I mean, that's what, $0.12, $0.13? Yeah.
So what's interesting is that now what has happened with Made in China 2025 is that you're seeing them shift into more higher-end manufacturing. China's leading the world in robotics. It's leading in animation. It's top in AI. I mean, obviously, US as well is a big AI powerhouse, but they're making tremendous strides. They're leading in renewable energies. The entire electronic vehicle sector cannot exist without China because China's the only country in the world that can actually make an electric vehicle battery.
That's quite a statement there. You know, just the fact that even the United States, we can't make an EV battery without Chinese technology. We can't make 100% American EV battery. As wild as that sounds, you know, it seems pretty simple. Really? Like in America, we have NASA and all of these advanced stuff.
of big military, we can't figure out how to make an EV battery. No, the technology needs technology from China. And that's China's battery technology is what defines that industry. And so I think that's what you've seen with Made in China 2025 is this big shift
into the next generation of products and i think it's a great thing from china because you don't want to just say hey all we can do is just manufacture cheap stuff anybody can learn to do that but once you start shifting and you go for example there's a reason why apple makes their stuff in china you know because simply the manufacturing is amazing the amount of tooling the engineering you know tim cook gave a very viral speech here he said that he said if i had to find
advanced tooling engineers in the United States, I would be lucky to fill a classroom. But if I go to China, I could fill multiple football fields with people that can do this skill set. I said, that's such an amazing insight that more people need to understand. That's why the big companies still go manufacture in China today. Yeah, I remember the CEO of Ford talking about EV batteries. If you want to have EV batteries, you have to go to China.
It was an absolutely fascinating speech. And I also know the speech by Tim Cook that you're talking about. So, I mean, it's amazing. The leaders of business in the United States clearly understand China's importance. But it seems like our political figures, sometimes at least they pretend they don't if they don't actually. You're listening to The Bridge.
I want to talk about high speed rail because you're in Vegas and I've always been excited about high speed rail. When in the early nineties, I wrote my high school, like senior thesis about
on the fact that China, that California was building high-speed rail. It was so excited it was going to be imminent and everywhere and amazing. But we don't have that yet. But China has more than 45,000 kilometers of some of the best high-speed rail in the world. And there is a new planned line between Las Vegas and just outside of Los Angeles that
Do you expect this to be built? Are they building it? Is it actually going to come to fruition? And do you think that more Americans will want more once they've tried it? I have a very different take on this. I don't like high-speed rail at all in the United States. I think high-speed rail in China is phenomenal. I love it. I absolutely enjoy taking it. It is my preferred transportation method. Last summer, I was in Guangzhou with my family. I had a business trip to Chongqing.
Immediately, didn't even think about booking a plane. I got right on the high speed rail, booked a nice comfortable business class ticket for very affordable, let's call it 40, $50. Enjoyed a nice six hour ride to the beautiful countryside, right in the heart of Chongqing, it was beautiful.
And so I love the way that China is able to embrace that technology. The difference in it in the United States is it's absolutely impossible to get done. And they are so far over budget. I'm talking billions of dollars over budget trying to build that high speed rail from Vegas to L.A. You know, the problem with that, Jason, is that it doesn't go to L.A. It goes to a suburb of L.A. that's like 40 minutes from L.A.
So it's pretty useless because if it would take you to downtown LA, okay, well, that makes sense, right? I'm in downtown. I can maybe grab an Uber to my hotel or I've got business, but it's kind of, it's kind of putting you off at a very obscure location where I'm like, it doesn't make any sense at all. I actually know the CEO of Brightline, which is the
the big rail network here in the United States. And they said, what she said is that it's very difficult to actually build the high-speed rail because of the land. And actually there's so much of the land that is owned by different people and maybe it's reserved land. And so the big issue and why you have so much delays is that it's essentially, it's impossible. You're gonna go from Vegas to California. You have all of this stretch of land
but you have multiple, multiple owners. Some people don't want to sell it. Some of it's environmentally protected. And so it's very difficult for you to actually get all the zoning and structuring that takes months and litigation. And so that's why everything just jams up for years and years and years. So quite honestly, that's why I say, I don't, I'm not a big fan of it. I wish they would ditch the project. And I think there's a tremendous amount of domestic flights in America. And that's just part of the culture. You know, when you come to America, you take a bunch of domestic flights and you rent cars.
That's how you get around. That's just the lifestyle here. And in China, we don't have to do that. In China, we can just take high-speed rail and just take taxis. And that's the difference. Let's just have a chat about this just for fun.
Elon Musk has one of his many companies. It's called Boring Company because we have amazing highways in the United States. Those are clearly owned by state and federal and maybe some private organizations as well. Couldn't we just bore like 100 meters underneath the highway and just bore on the same land that we have highways? I mean, it's possible, conceivable that we could just use the land that's already been set aside for our amazing highway infrastructure in the United States. Yeah.
Right. I mean, I like that idea. I like the outside the box thinking. I just think, you know, the other thing is the cost. There is a high speed rail in my home state of Florida that goes from Orlando to Miami. And I was actually interested in selling to have that experience. And but, you know, it is it's extremely expensive.
like, for example, a business class ticket in that I wanted to go round trip from, you know, I'm going to say it was probably five or $600, you know, in order to do that, it was, it was substantially, you know, very, very expensive, you know, fight. So it's kind of like, it's almost getting to the point where it's a novelty, you know, like,
okay, we're gonna pay this big fee to kind of have this experience. Not really one where it's like, okay, I'm actually gonna use this to get around. That's actually my preferred way to get around. It's almost more of let's go have some fun on the train and they have some nice food and beverage options and stuff. So it's kind of a new experience, but for guys like you and I that have experienced high speed rail in China, there's no reason for us to pay that exorbitant fee. We can just go to China and have a great experience. - Yeah, those are really good points. Let's switch the topic up to gold.
So you have mentioned in one of your videos on YouTube that China is buying up gold. Why?
Well, I think what's amazing with gold is that gold is just, you can go back to biblical days and gold has been a storage of value. Gold has always been something that is held during times of inflation, times of uncertainty. And I think what's really amazing is over the years, you start to see China getting away from holding so much US dollar debt. And I think that is what you're starting to see is a little bit more of a diversification. I remember when
When I was in China in 2007, 2008, China had a tremendous amount of U.S. debt. And actually, I think a lot of things that people forget is that 2008 financial crisis, it's China that bailed out the United States a bunch of American debt, buying these long-term bonds and buying the savings bonds and things like that, that really did stimulate the U.S. economy and help get us out of the recession that we were in, in the great financial crisis of 2008.
So I think what is really interesting is that now things have shifted. Obviously, the relationship between US and China is nowhere near as good as it was back in 2007, 2008. And so I think you see China starting to diversify, wanting to hold that. But it's not China. I'd like to tell you that in the last certainly 2023, 2024, we see a record number of central banks around the world begin to stockpile gold.
And again, it is used in times of inflation, times of uncertainty. I certainly think looking at geopolitically, there's a lot of uncertainty in the world. So gold is always going to be valuable. It's just never going to, and I think that's, I'm not gonna say it's never gonna lose value. I mean, it certainly fluctuates like any other asset
But it's very stable and it's always going to have a lot of value in society. And so, yeah, I think that's the simple reason why, just diversification and wanting to make sure that they have a high value of storage in times of uncertainty. - Let's go back to tariffs for a moment. You mentioned that US companies pay the tariffs
for importing goods from China. And therefore, it's not going to hurt China that much. But there is a chance that some products will be diversified away from China to like Vietnam or Mexico, Canada, or even maybe some of those products can be made domestically in the United States, you know, minority of products. So will the slight reduction of products coming from China to the United States, will that hurt China? Is China reliant on the U.S. for exports? Yeah.
Well, there's another phenomenal thing that China's been doing over the last 10 years, Jason, and that is diversifying away from just focusing on that U.S. market. You know, the percentage of exports of China's exports around the world, that percentage that goes to the United States is a very minimum amount when you actually look at, for example, the ASEAN countries that are, you know, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, you know, this group of 10 countries.
Southeast Asian countries, China's trade to the ASEAN network is much higher than the United States. And so you're starting to see China diversify away. And again, this ties right into another thing that started 10 years ago, which was the Belt and Road Initiative. Over 150 countries have signed on. They have signed on to become members of the Belt and Road. And I think it's incredible because that is how you start doing trade and business around the world.
Interesting enough, I did see a video clip that was quite phenomenal, is that John Kerry, who actually ran for the United States president, narrowly lost it in 2004 to George Bush Jr. But he said that China had extended a Belt and Road Initiative style plan for the United States. And he said that politically, that was his biggest regret, that he didn't take advantage of working with China.
And I just saw a video clip of that. And I thought that was incredible, incredible revelation that he would say that was his biggest political mistake that he had made that he wished he would have done. And I think that's quite incredible. And you see, you know, another country that joined the first Western European country was Italy. They joined the Belt and Road Initiative a number of years ago, caused a big roar because obviously Italy is a very big Western European nation. And they joined the BRI and then
a couple of years ago, they withdrew. And then now they've come back and said, no, we want to, we want back in. We want to do more business with you. So you've seen a pivot away and then a pivot return, which is quite interesting. So yeah, I think all of this ties into start to see if we go, you know, you mentioned earlier in the podcast about China's long-term planning. Well, there you go. I mean, how many times have we said, well, this started back in 2015. Now we're starting to see a decade later that really start to come to fruition and start to see that effect.
I have another question as well. During our childhood, the United States was diversifying its industry to other countries, including China, Mexico, and other places. Does China make goods in other countries? Well, that's interesting when you say that, Jason, because when you start looking at Mexico, you start looking at Vietnam, these other countries where people say, hey, we're not going to buy stuff in China anymore.
We're not going to build factories in China anymore. Let's just go to Vietnam. Well, actually, you have a lot of Chinese owners that do the same thing. So manufacturing in China is not as cheap as many people think it is. They think that, oh, everybody gets paid $1, everything costs $2, and these companies can make everything for super cheap.
Well, actually, wages in China, if you look at it on a graph, has increased every single year. It's gone up every single year. There's a lot more specific requirements from the Chinese government, including insurances and pensions and things like that. So there's a lot more structure for workers in addition to increasing wage that has increased tremendously over the past decade. So it's not as cheap as you might think it is to manufacture in China anymore.
And, you know, a couple of summers ago in June 2023, I actually traveled to a textile factory where I actually made a video going behind the scenes, showing all of the interesting ins and outs of this textile factory on the outskirts of Wuxi. And it was amazing because the owners had said, you know, it's not as cheap to manufacture. But for us, we're a high-end manufacturer. You know, we focus on...
mainly European brands. So we're making high end stuff and we charge a premium because we pay a premium and we treat our workers better. We treat them well and we want to make sure that we take care of them. And so as a result, you know, our cost is you don't come to us when you want 100 white T-shirts and, you know, for the cheapest price possible. We don't do that. You know, we're making the very high end
ski jackets for Scandinavian brands and things of that nature, things that are very high quality. And so they're able to charge more and they're also able to take care of their workers more. But I think what's interesting, going back to the question, is that you do see a lot of Chinese companies going abroad in Mexico and throughout Southeast Asia. And really the big thing is Asia. I mean, Asia is the future of growth for the world. 21st century is Asia's century. And
And so that – obviously, China is a big part of Asia. But I mean you have many, many other diversified economies like Thailand and Singapore and Malaysia that are all growing fantastic and doing great. And a lot of that is because of trade. A lot of people talk about China's economy, especially Western media. It hasn't been as bad lately. But definitely towards the end of 2024, I remember reading a lot of headlines.
that said China's economy is slowing, that China's real estate market was weighing the economy down. How do you see China's economy today? I do see it weak. I do see that it's not as strong as it once was. And I think what's interesting is that there is a certain level of pessimism amongst a lot of Chinese consumers. And I think what's interesting, Jason, is when you... Again, it goes back to that culture. When we locked down for COVID in the United States, basically,
We had a lot of pent up demand. Right. So as soon as things started reopening, you had the revenge spending where people said, you know what? Screw this. I'm sick and tired of being locked down for a year, a year and a half, whatever it was. We're going to go on a big holiday. We're going to go buy some fancy watches. We're going to go live our best life. And if we even if we can't afford it, we'll just charge it on the credit card and just think about it later. That's very much the American way of life.
China had a very different reaction to that. I think China, for example, their COVID period was a lot longer before it was fully recovered. And what happened is you had a lot of Chinese that I think actually a lot more cautious saying, you know what, we're not going to do the revenge spending.
We're going to save some additional money for a rainy day. And I think that's a good thing because most Chinese typically don't like to carry debt. They want to pay things off. Whereas in America, we live on credit card debt, right? Everyone has a credit card. Everybody maxes it out. Everybody, you know, it's very common to be in credit card debt. Very, very common in America. And that doesn't exist in China. So that's what's really fascinating is that you have a difference in culture. But I would say that there's certain industries that I think are doing better.
better than others in China. But on the whole, I wouldn't say it's great, to be honest. I think there is, you know, the real estate market is certainly down. We have youth unemployment is very high. It's a very big pool of people. I mean, so, you know, if you're a college graduate right now, it's difficult to get a really good job because the competition is fierce and there's only so many good jobs. But I think, you know, with every crisis, there's an opportunity. And I think that,
Specifically, for example, AI, right? The AI industry is absolutely booming in China. We saw this huge breakthrough with DeepSeek, which was incredible. But you do see certain industries, certainly renewable energies, anything with EVs. There's a lot of specific industries that are actually doing really well. It's not...
The same as, for example, when I first went to 2007, 2008, I remember 2007, my first year in China, you know, I think the GDP grew by 14%, which was incredible. But obviously, you have a different scale of numbers, right? China's economy in 2007, much smaller than it is in 2025. So 14% growth on the size of China's economy today is impossible. No country is going to be able to accomplish that.
So I look at it as every country goes through cycles. Again, we go back to 2008 in America. I mean, that was some very, very dark times in America, a lot of pessimism. And so, yeah, I think that China certainly has its challenges right now, but it's going to get through it. It's going to get through it. There's going to be brighter days ahead and things will eventually reverse and things are going to get better. And go back to tariffs again, because this is a huge part of the new administration.
China's not the only target. And you mentioned already Canada as well and Mexico. But it looks like the European Union might also be on the receiving end of a lot of tariffs from the White House. How do you see Europe and China given new tariffs for everyone? Well, I'm very critical of Donald Trump's presidency so far. I think he's really starting to take the United States down a very dangerous road that I think is going to come home and really stifle
start to affect your average American's life adversely very quickly. I'm going to say within the next three to six months. And I'm very interested to see how this tariff goes. Again, I think the most ridiculous one is tariffs against Canada. I mean, there's just no possible reason for you to say that. Trump, for example, has said that there's fentanyl and that there is illegal border crossings coming in from Canada. When you actually look at it, it's less than half a percentage of
illegal border crossings. It's something like 0.4%, where obviously the vast majority would be coming in through Mexico. So you can make that argument with Mexico that, hey, there's a fentanyl problem. It's definitely the fentanyl problem is, of course, coming from the Mexican cartels that are importing the drugs into the United States. So there's two problems there. Number one, obviously, America has a drug problem. That's the first thing you have to realize is that unfortunately, a lot of our citizens do have a drug problem. And there's obviously increased demand.
and then mexico's there to increase the supply and that's and that's where the mexican cartels and the drug dealers want to make money and so you could say that hey we're going to put tariffs on mexico so that they get that border situation secured you can make that argument with canada it doesn't make any sense european union right now again 25 tax on the entire european union it just doesn't make sense it's just bad business it doesn't make sense
It's very ironic for someone who wrote The Art of the Deal that claims to be the big businessman and the negotiator. I think it's very difficult to, why are you going after your allies, right? The United States has been great partners with Canada, with Mexico, with the entire European Union. But right now, Trump has isolated him, is isolating the United States. I say this, this is an interesting kind of tidbit. Trump campaigned on America first, right?
I believe that he's taking the United States down a road of America alone. That's what we're looking at right now. And specifically with Europe, they are in a very dangerous position right now. I wouldn't say dangerous, but I would say, what's a better word for that? They're in a very bad situation because their economic outlook is terrible. Germany, the economic powerhouse of Russia, the German economy has been absolutely decimated.
because it relied on cheap Russian gas. Well, guess what? Nord Stream Pipeline is completely blown up. There's no Russian gas coming in anytime soon. And that was your competitive advantage. So the German economy is struggling. And I think what was really interesting, Jason, is we saw the head of German trade union said, if Donald Trump goes through with these 25% tariffs,
we will have no other option but to turn to China for increased trade to balance that out. So ironically, we have another situation where Donald Trump's actions are actually turning into another win for China. And again, what has China done? Literally nothing. Sit and do nothing. And I think there's an interesting quote. I've heard this. I think it's from Napoleon. I think it's from a Chinese warrior, you know, as well. Don't interrupt your enemy while they're making a mistake.
I firmly believe that the United States is making a very grave mistake if they are going to tariff Canada, Mexico and the European Union. I think that will only backfire on the United States, cause prices to increase substantially, inflation to increase. And ironically, you're going to drive more countries to work with China to balance out that risk. You're listening to The Bridge.
i want to ask you another question about inflation for college educated people people in the top 50 of america i'm assuming most people are getting by despite the fact that there was 10 inflation for a couple of years in the united states and that eggs for some reason i guess it has to do with culling of an enlarged amount of chickens because of bird flu are just outstandingly expensive
But what about like the bottom half of America? Do you see regular people? Are they making it? Or is it as bad as one might expect given the financial circumstances?
I think that the middle America and certainly the lower income America is struggling tremendously. There's interesting reels and social media videos that you can now see where people say, you know, for example, the standard in America was always, do you earn six figures? Like if you can earn six figures a year as a salary, that's kind of the dream for middle
many people, especially like me growing up, anybody that had that could earn six figures a year, that was a phenomenal salary. I mean, just absolutely fantastic. And that really is almost your bottom line now where you need to be earning six figures a year because of your taxes. But just things like to have my kids be playing in sports after school, to take my family on a couple of vacations a year, to go out with my wife on a date night once or twice a week. We're not living like
millionaires, but we just want to have some nice things in life to be able to go, you know, afford a couple family vacations, have the kids in sports, things that you want to be able to do. I mean, your minimum $100,000 a year that you're going to need to really command in salary. So I think for people that are earning less than that, I think it's become a very big challenge.
And it's only going up. I mean, cost of eggs. You mentioned the eggs. I mean, right now, if I go to the grocery store, a dozen eggs. I mean, if I'm going to buy your generic as cheap as it gets, probably seven, eight dollars for a dozen eggs. And then if you're going to organic and you're trying to go to Whole Foods or buy something super healthy, I mean, it's not uncommon to pay 13, 14 dollars for that super high end grade A organic egg. So like a dollar an egg. Basically a dollar an egg. So, I mean, it's incredibly expensive.
And this is another problem in America is that it's not easy, it's not cheap, nor is it easy to eat, you know, really good high quality foods. And that's unfortunately why we have an obesity problem and we have a tremendous amount of health problems because people...
If you want to get the nicest egg and it costs you $14 a dozen, well, not many people can afford that. And so you're going to go to the cheapest options or you're going to go to McDonald's and try to get a value meal and try to save money. I mean, another thing that was phenomenal, Jason, I mean, this wasn't this year. This was, I believe it was last year, maybe even the year before. But when this inflation problem was out of control, I thought this was so cringe. But you had Kellogg's.
CEO, of course, Kellogg's famous cereal company said, you know, we're encouraging a lot of Americans to eat cereal for dinner. You know, one, it's delicious and you can save a lot of money. And I'm like, wow, that's incredible. So that's the message to America. Guys, let's sit down and eat cereal for dinner so we can try to save some money right now.
I thought that was a very cringe way to try to promote his products, where I'm like, hey, guys, I think there's a bigger picture than us eating cereal at night. Like, that's what we have to resort to, or a lot of people have to resort to. We've got an issue in society right now. So let's pay attention to that. Wow. That's not a very bright picture. But I want to switch gears again to Taiwan. And I want to specifically talk briefly about China Hawk LHC.
Eldridge Colby, he's very common on social media saying very hawkish things about China. He's been nominated for Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. So how do you see this administration's Taiwan stance evolving? Because every time I listen to a new person describing what Trump is trying to do, I'm
It feels like a three, you know, 180. Like what? No, that's the opposite of what this other person. I have no idea what's going on in the White House. You know, what's interesting is I don't think the White House has a lot of ideas what's really going on around the world. And I think that you're getting a lot of conflicting views. I don't believe that Donald Trump is very knowledgeable about
these world issues you know when you talk about the nuances and the real specifics about that taiwan u.s china relationship let's call it a triangle there's a very interesting dynamic that really requires a lot of tremendous studying and intense knowledge
of the history and really what this relationship and how we got to the point where we are today which is the status quo the you know the status quo that has maintained peace in the taiwan strait for many many decades how did we get here how did it happen and i guarantee you donald trump doesn't understand all of those nuances i mean even when you look at russia ukraine there's a lot more nuances that i don't believe him and his team fully understand specifically back to taiwan though
We do have people like Elbridge Colby, who I would classify as a China hawk, someone that wants to provoke China, someone that really wants to take on China. And I think, you know, really the Taiwan situation, Jason, is very, very simple, is the last 60 years,
The United States has recognized the one China policy. And that is always an interesting question because, you know, people will talk to us and say, what is your stance on China? And I say, all right, what is your stance on Taiwan? How do you view Taiwan? And I said, well, look at the vast majority of countries around the world. I mean, every single Western country, every superpower, every big country, there's only about, recognizes that Taiwan's part of China. There's about a dozen countries in the world that don't.
The very small countries, not important really that on the geographical stage as far as world economy. I mean, very small little island nations, things like that. So these are the countries that are trying to leverage that relationship. But I think honestly with this, Jason, I am a little bit worried because if you have people that, for example, we want to say, hey, let's move away from strategic ambiguity. Let's go to strategic policy.
clarity. Let's go ahead and declare that Taiwan is an independent country. Give them the rights. And you know what? If China doesn't like it, then they're going to have to deal with it. That's a recipe for disaster. And that's absolutely playing with fire. And you will get burned when you play with fire. So again, we need to really bring in more people that are more knowledgeable and that really have
that cool head that can actually talk to chinese and taiwanese and figure things out but interesting enough i mean you i'm going to bring it back to the tariffs which you have already many times you know trump has come out and said that if taiwan does not bring more tsmc semiconductors back to the united states he could potentially tariff taiwan
which is going to be ironic because maybe you're going to see taiwan actually shift and say you know what maybe we're just going to start selling more microchips to china which by the way taiwan and china i mean their economies are very very connected they're doing a tremendous amount of trade and i think you know you might actually see taiwan move closer to china because of donald trump tariffs if he's going to also threaten taiwan with all of these other countries around the world that he's going to do now you're going to get you know go after taiwan
So it's very, very interesting. I was talking to a professor off of the record recently, and he said that Donald Trump wants to create lasting peace with China. And I asked him why he thought this. He said...
Because Donald Trump, for whatever else he wants and whatever else he does, he wants to be remembered as being a good president because he's that kind of guy. And so he wants to maybe achieve some peace accords with different countries. And we've certainly seen some radical developments in Europe recently where…
What do you think Donald Trump wants with China? Because, you know, Donald Trump always does talk about President Xi as like, oh, this is my friend, my buddy. We talk on the phone all the time. I would disagree with your professor's comments that Donald Trump wants to be remembered as a good president. I think one thing that you have to remember with Donald Trump is that he has a very large ego and
I think he will be the first to tell you that he's the best president that we've ever had and that he's amazing at what he's doing. So I don't think he ever worries about his reputation. I think his self-confidence in himself and, you know, he regards himself as a great president no matter what he does in the White House. I don't think that's his motivation. Like, hey, I'd like to get a deal with China so people could remember me in a nice way. I think.
That's not Donald Trump. He's definitely not thinking that. And this is something that I actually do really like about Donald Trump and his negotiations with China. As he said, you know, we're going to have 100% EV tax. We're going to tax a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs. We basically don't want Chinese EVs to enter the United States. Why? Well, because they're so good, they're so advanced, and they're so economical, they would destroy the American car industry. Fair enough.
you're not wrong. It definitely would because I guarantee you if Americans had access to the quality of EVs that they have in China,
absolutely nine out of 10 Americans would buy that guaranteed because at the end of the day, we want better prices. And you start seeing these EV cars and it's like, wow, this technology blows Tesla out of the water. We're definitely going to buy that. You know, a hundred percent going to buy that. Now I think what Donald Trump had, had floated an idea would be like, well, what if we get a Chinese, let's say BYD, BYD, you can come to Detroit and you can, let's do a joint venture. We're,
the United States government or maybe do a joint venture with Ford. Let's say Ford maintains 51 ownership, you get 49,
You're going to build a massive BYD plant. Let's make it the biggest automobile plant in the United States. We're going to hire however many thousand American workers. You need to have American workers there. Let's bring back manufacturing jobs. Let's work with China to build new factories in America so that we can increase American jobs, but yet we can still have Chinese technology. And we're going to put it at a price point that is competitive, but that's not going to kill our auto industry. I would love that plan. I think that's a great idea.
And so that would be something that I hope that Xi Jinping and Donald Trump can certainly hash through in the next four years. I mean, nothing would make me happier to see then a Chinese auto company come and do a joint venture with like a Ford Motor Group and build an incredible factory. And then all of a sudden, American consumers can get access to this great technology from China. But yet we've got tens of thousands of new jobs for Americans.
and China and the US are working together in a joint venture. That's a fantastic thing. That is exactly the type of stuff that I preach should be happening between our two great countries, because I do believe that the United States and China are both great countries, and any way that I could foster a relationship
That's basically what I do every day, Jason. You and I as content creators, we try to share our message to the world and we try to encourage people to think outside the box. And I think that would be a very outside the box solution that could benefit, again, it's a win-win. It's a win-win-win for everybody involved. What do you think about...
Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the context of the Sino-US relationship. Is he a better choice for Secretary of State, or how do you think he's going to handle China? I don't think Marco Rubio is a good choice at all. I'm not a fan of Marco Rubio. I think with him, it's an interesting one because
What you see in American politics is you always see this every single time is that Marco Rubio is one of the biggest critics of Donald Trump. He had no respect for Donald Trump. He didn't want to work with him. He had nothing to do with him. And what's very interesting is that as soon as Donald Trump wins the presidency, he's
And then he needs to pick his cabinet and he calls up Marco Rubio. Hey, I want to give you a job as secretary of state. Now, all of a sudden, you have an opportunity to advance your career. You were a senator for a number of years, but now you can be secretary of state. Huge upgrade in your professional development.
Of course you're going to take it. So what do you do? You basically flip-flop and you now say everything. I love working with Donald Trump. He's a great guy, great president. I'm so happy to be here. And now you kind of play the game. And that's unfortunately American politics. You know what? I don't blame him. That's the game. That's how American politics, you have to play the game and you've got to get the votes.
and you need to do whatever you need to do to get them because that's how you play the game. If you try to do it ethically, you actually try to serve the people and try to make things better, you're probably not going to win an election because let's be honest, you need to make sure that you're acting in your own interest to make sure that you get those votes. That's the only way that you can keep power in the United States is you have to make sure you do whatever. So there's ulterior motives. It's always, how can I advance my career? How can I get those votes? I'm not actually going to do anything. I just need to make sure that I campaign well and raise a bunch of money
And, you know, that's where all of these special interest groups are involved and the billions of dollars in lobbyists. I mean, it's a mess. It's an absolute mess with Washington, D.C. But I think in regards to that, I mean, Rubio is an aggressive China hawk. I mean, he's definitely very aggressive towards China. He's one that has said that, you know, he definitely would support a...
you know, more of a movement for independence for Taiwan, which again is a red line and that's just not going to be crossed. So again, I think it's fine to have these kind of viewpoints. I just want to make sure that people that actually are making the decisions that I think that the
cooler heads are going to prevail. So I'm not worried at all between a Taiwan-China-U.S. conflict happening under Donald Trump. I don't think it does. I don't think it does. And I'm actually less worried about that. I would actually shift over to Russia-Ukraine as probably the biggest threat right now to the future of our world. Last question, and you've given me such wonderful answers to this question when I've asked you this question before, so I'm hoping that you can help us today.
What should regular Americans know about China, given what is at stake for Americans? I think the biggest thing that Americans need to know about China is the fact that we are more similar than we are different. And I think that when you look at how we open this story up today, talking about Red Note, talking about the fact that Chinese people
are want the same in life as you and I do, Jason. You know, we all want to have better lives. We all want to have take care of our children. We always want our next generation to be better than ours. And I think the other thing is, is that I would say, I think that's the answer that I probably gave you last time. I would say the Chinese people are very peaceful. Chinese people would always value peace above everything. That's probably the best way to answer that question. So I don't think you look at China. When is the last time that they were involved in a war? Well, that was 1979.
And it is, you know, China does not go around the world starting wars. You look at all the amount of government interventions around the world. You look at the amount of proxy wars that have been fought. You look at all of the issues, you know, whether it's through Yugoslavia or Russia, Ukraine, you know, all through South America and government coups and things like that. The United States government is involved in every single one. That's what the United States government does. China
doesn't do that. China is a peaceful country. And quite frankly, the Chinese are very pragmatic and they really have one thing in mind. How do we do business together? Let's go make money. Let's do business together and make win-wins. And I think if you really focus on that, I think it's a great thing. And it's why I focus more on investing and more people-to-people diplomacy, because at the end of the day, Jason, that is what our global economy is. And that's a great
thing is that we're working together and that we're building win-win relationships. And that's why I always think that China is such an amazing country and one that people shouldn't fear. I have no fear in China at all. And the simple reason is, is that I know that Chinese people and the Chinese government, they don't want
America to fail. They don't want America to crumble and fall apart. Or honestly, the world is big enough for the United States and China to both be there and to both be powers. And the world is unstoppable if the United States and China actually do figure out a way to work together as close allies. Thank you so much for your time, Cyrus. Always a pleasure, Jason. Thank you so much for your time as well.